Develop Bugs

[Q] Why no ones talk about the lag cause by Insufficient memory

I notice the phone start lagging when there are less than 100Meg of available RAM on both 2.1 or 2.2 SGS.
Questions....
1. How do i make sure there will always be min 130 available when not in use?
I'm currently using Froyo Task Manager, ATK and SystemPanel together to make that happen manually. A better suggestion or use of them will be appreciated.
I also tried MemoryPlus and Taskkiller (The red android logo)
2. There are so many background service running some of them start with com.samsung.... (what are these?) do we need them?
3. Why some Apps always run without us telling them to run, or ask us to give them to permission to run on background at will?

ATK
In ATK in settings you have auto kill level, which is disabled on default.

jakaka said:
In ATK in settings you have auto kill level, which is disabled on default.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using JPC, ATK autokill will not able to kill at a system level like SystemPanel, so after a day of active use, the memory will still continue to reduce as some of the background service start consuming more and more memory or run more background process. E.g. Touchwiz from 17 Meg to 25 Meg.
So at the start with ATK, i will have 130Meg, after a day of active use i left with 80Meg. With Apps killed.

I use autokiller set to aggressive. memory left 152mb

ivanchin99 said:
I use autokiller set to aggressive. memory left 152mb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool, does that remain for few days? How often do you restart your phone?

free memory is bad memory!
why don't let android do it's job?! this ist linux with a clever memory management, not windows 95!!! deinstall all auto task killer android is handling the memory very well. it uses all it can get and if it's not enough it kills old uses apps from it. why have free memory, there is absolutely no reson for that! ram is fast, let the often used apps be there not on slow sd or nand!

Mykron said:
free memory is bad memory!
why don't let android do it's job?! this ist linux with a clever memory management, not windows 95!!! deinstall all auto task killer android is handling the memory very well. it uses all it can get and if it's not enough it kills old uses apps from it. why have free memory, there is absolutely no reson for that! ram is fast, let the often used apps be there not on slow sd or nand!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
QFT!
What is the point of having memory if it is constantly empty?
Think about it this way...If you had five friends at your house and you have five chairs, do you make 2 or 3 of your friends stand so there is always empty space or do you let everyone sit down and worry about something worthwhile?

Finguz said:
QFT!
What is the point of having memory if it is constantly empty?
Think about it this way...If you had five friends at your house and you have five chairs, do you make 2 or 3 of your friends stand so there is always empty space or do you let everyone sit down and worry about something worthwhile?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, upto a certain point... I don't think you need to have at least 100 or 150 mb free but it DOES seem to help to not let it get down to like 30mb...

For me:
-JM7
-animations off
-voodoo lag fix
-minfree manager set to preset agressive.
minfree manager customizes the android memory management system.
I love it this way, No lags when starting the Phone (DIALER) or anything else. The dialer annoys me the must, this must be lag free, if i want to dial i want to dial right away.

Btw, I think you have made some wrong assumptions about the Android memory management system, as mentioned, unused ram is wasted ram.

dagrim1 said:
True, upto a certain point... I don't think you need to have at least 100 or 150 mb free but it DOES seem to help to not let it get down to like 30mb...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed but I have never seen my Galaxy with free memory that low and I don't use a task killer. Of course I don't often have more than 3 or 4 apps running at the same time

This is not about letting ram do nothing.you surely don't wasn't your ram get used up by programs you don't want while you had no hand in this.All those services running I don't want.badly written programs that are hanging out in memory instead of closing.at least in symbian an app closed when you exited.

Why would you have 100MB free ? Do you have any application that needs 100MB to run ?! The android system already has enough memory to run so even if you could have 200MB of free memory you phone wouldn't run any faster you would just be able to lauch around 20 apps at the same time.
Read this:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
Linux however isn’t generally affected by this. While I admit that I don’t know the architecture and reason for this… linux will run the same regardless of if you have 20mb free memory or 200mb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Finguz said:
Agreed but I have never seen my Galaxy with free memory that low and I don't use a task killer. Of course I don't often have more than 3 or 4 apps running at the same time
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Click to collapse
Dunno, I just noticed that one time my phone was VERY sluggish and memory free was around 20mb or so. Cleaning it up did seem to help (unless one of the programs killed was causing the lag of course).
Ah well... Whatever people choose right?

You guys can argue all you want that free RAM is a waste of RAM....
But it is a fact that the SGS runs much slower when the free RAM is low. This is the experience of all the SGS'es I have tried and my own as well. At least this is the case when running 2.1. I have not tested anyone with 2.2 yet.

It s starts to lag when memory is below 40 mb. So when it s low and you start an application it starts to lag. I set it to 50-55-60 and got hardly any lag. No need to keep so much free ram
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

matty___ said:
It s starts to lag when memory is below 40 mb. So when it s low and you start an application it starts to lag. I set it to 50-55-60 and got hardly any lag. No need to keep so much free ram
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Which ROM are you using? as the low memory killer level for background apps is set at 40M which means you should have 40M free all the time or it will start killing background apps. This is also why task killers are useless, free ram is wasted ram for android.
I never had the experience that more free RAM is faster, perhaps with the stock rom but JC and upwards are all good by default. Animations off + Oneclick lagfix (or another) and the phone stays totally lag free.
Being an android user for 1,5 years now i'm very confident Taskkillers are useless except when an app is stuck. I've had periods where I used them allot but the phone only gets slower as the killed apps have to be loaded into the memory again.

Finguz said:
QFT!
What is the point of having memory if it is constantly empty?
Think about it this way...If you had five friends at your house and you have five chairs, do you make 2 or 3 of your friends stand so there is always empty space or do you let everyone sit down and worry about something worthwhile?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Provided you are not expecting anymore friends. The problem happens if all your 5 friends are happily seated and along comes 2 more friends a-visiting. So you have to now move 2 inactive (for want of a better word) friends out of the seats so that you can accommodate the 2 new ones. This takes time. So why not move these friends out as soon as they become inactive so that the space is readily available when someone comes calling?

Try to have a read about garbage collector before argueing about free memory.
The more you try to have a large amount of memory, the more you will need major GC (and during major GC all activity is frozen).
If you let the system manage memory, it does minor GC as needed when it reaches min memory waterline (seems to be 50Mo on SGS).
Let the system do its job.
Get rid of task killer.

Mykron said:
free memory is bad memory!
why don't let android do it's job?! this ist linux with a clever memory management, not windows 95!!! deinstall all auto task killer android is handling the memory very well. it uses all it can get and if it's not enough it kills old uses apps from it. why have free memory, there is absolutely no reason for that! ram is fast, let the often used apps be there not on slow sd or nand!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I completely disagree. OK, it is better to use memory, but the android memory management is extremely inefficient since it does not know which foreground and background processes are important to the user and which are not, even though it tries to figure that out. Since the Galaxy S does not allow the system to use the full 512MB of memory, this can be a critical factor. And the Galaxy S definitely lags massively when less then 70 or so MB of free RAM is available this is definitely a fact.
The biggest problem is that you cannot manually close apps and only have multitasking access to the last 6 apps used. If you use 7 apps simultaneously, the 1st app still consumes memory but you cannot even switch back to it. And there are so many useless background processes, starting up over and over again and consuming hundreds of MB memory if they are not killed in regular fashion.
Who needs gesture search, amazon mp3, layar, and all the samsung crap running in the background all the time. If you only have 10 such applications and each of them only consumes 15MB of ram, 150MB are wasted for nothing.
Every second market application registers itself as autostart on every boot, so to use a autostart manager is also mandatory.
Since everybody can easily develop for Android the application quality and resource efficiency is not always perfect. So in my opinion Android needs a task manager, this is why even Samsung integrates such a application.
Using a well configured ATK (set to ignore system applications, widgets and apps frequently used for multitasking and killing every else on screen off) and autokiller (strict setting) in addition to Autostart Manager (had to remove 40!!! useless apps from automatic startup) and lagfix, the SGS runs perfectly smooth.

[Q] Total memory less than 768 MB???

Can anyone explain the amount of RAM that this phone is suppose to have?
The specs for the phone lists 768 MB. However, the total memory that comes up is 617940 kB.
Thanks.

Bull Shot said:
Can anyone explain the amount of RAM that this phone is suppose to have?
The specs for the phone lists 768 MB. However, the total memory that comes up is 617940 kB.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
where are you finding this number? i am at 758 MB. since i have a bunch of apps installed, that would seem about right.

How are you guys getting so much free ram? When I check on Task Killer, whenever I kill all the apps I'm not using it usually shows 358 mb ... and programs I'm not using automatically keep running (i.e Maps).

hmm maybe im not checking the right place? i'm getting my 758 mb number from settings--SD and phone storage. the internal phone storage tells me 758mb.
on an unrelated note though, you shouldn't use task killers. they are considered by most to be more of a drain on your battery life as android is already setup to manage closing unused apps on its own.

Many people use the term "memory" to mean system memory as well as storage. I try to avoid calling system storage as "memory" and tend to use "storage" instead, or refer to the type of storage.
Total ram is around 768mb. Part of it is reserved (not sure why, possibly for filesystem caching) so around 603mb is available. For this platform that is a healthy chunk of RAM to work with. Even with my hefty usage I have ~126mb free.
Internal storage is something like 2gb, with it partially consumed by the Android install as well as NAND configuration adjustments for reliability which cause some of the storage space to be consumed through hardware (there's an excellent explanation of this somewhere, don't have a link handy), resulting in about 1.1gb being available. I have 103 apps installed, 523.5mb of the internal storage used, with 638.8mb available.
There was an excellent tool posted on xda (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1066060) called Android Optimizer that gives a lot of good information about memory, storage, cpu usage, etc. I'd recommend checking it out. It's not available on the market and it is a little buggy so use it with a bit of caution if you choose to use any of the optimization functions.

cool. thanks for the explanation nimdae!

There have been so, so, so many posts on this topic that I will not rehash them all here. Instead, I will ask a simple question: For what do you use all that free RAM?
Ask yourself that question, and be serious about it. I think you will find yourself uninstalling your task managers and memory optimizers before long.
Edit: to avoid unnecessary discussion, Watchdog is in fact neither of those, and I would highly recommend it as the only memory app you will ever need.
Edit 2: the total RAM displayed is the RAM that is actually available to be used by anything the user may want to run. As a poster earlier said, the system reserves a certain amount of RAM for its own use to keep important processes moving along. The reserved RAM is not available, and so doesn't appear in total RAM. Unless you want to uninstall the OS. Then you could have access to all 768 MBs.

I would like to reiterate why you should not use automatic task killers.
As of, I believe, Android 2.0, the garbage collection and memory management was significantly improved. However, this was not a new system in Android, it always existed.
How it works:
If you haven't noticed with Android, when you leave an app, it doesn't close it unless the app specifically does something to end the process. This is by design. Android allows the app to remain in memory. Frequently used apps will load faster with this design. A "task" that is not killed and is in the background ONLY consumes memory, it does not "run" (in Linux terms, the process is actually in a "stopped" state so the task can't do anything anyway). Only a "service" can run in the background. Most apps that have long running services have lightweight services.
If an application loads that requires more memory than is available, Android will examine backgrounded tasks for candidates to be killed to free up memory. This makes it so as many tasks as possible can remain in memory for better performance. In understanding this, you should know that if you have a large amount of memory, and memory usage is high, this is a GOOD THING. With the amount of memory in the I2, there is a lot of breathing space for this.
There is one other case where a backgrounded task will be killed: if it has been in the background for a certain period of time without being brought forward. Killing a task to free up memory to load another task can actually be a little cpu expensive (but not THAT much) so this can make it slightly easier.
Please note that backgrounded tasks WILL NOT contribute to battery drain. Only tasks at the front and services will. Killing your backgrounded calculator will do nothing for you other than free that small amount of memory it uses. Used memory does not contribute to extra battery drain as DRAM refreshes happen on ALL cells anyway.
Background services can also be made candidates for being killed. If an app needs more memory than can be made available by killing backgrounded tasks, then services become targets to be killed as well.
Automatic task killers cause a couple of problems. A less major problem is you lose that one benefit you get by keeping tasks in the background: performance. I don't just mean how fast it loads. If it can bring a backgrounded task to the front from memory rather than load from storage, you remove extra processing to load the app, including storage access, that contribute to higher battery drain. The other problem is a poorly configured task killer can break things like notifications.
Managing your services is always a good idea. Having a lot of services running means background processes that are capable of contributing to battery drain. Additionally, there are apps with misbehaving services (services that consume resources or use features they shouldn't). While I'm against automatic task killers, using something to monitor and manage services is a good idea. Just always keep in mind the implications for killing a service: it may affect a feature to an app that you would rather not impact.

Excellent explanation nimdae! Task killers are the devil.

On another note, my posts are getting too long...

nimdae said:
On another note, my posts are getting too long...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Everything is longer in Texas.

xgunther said:
Everything is longer in Texas.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what s...no, that's too easy.
Move along, nothing to see.

Before I read this I was like a task Nazi. I killed my tasks often, but now I think I will just let them be. Nice write up BTW. Very informative.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA App

TB13 said:
Before I read this I was like a task Nazi. I killed my tasks often, but now I think I will just let them be. Nice write up BTW. Very informative.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Remember: I'm not saying don't manage things. Poorly behaving services are the #1 cause of high battery drain (at least on non-LTE devices), and this will be even more problematic when you overclock.

xgunther said:
Excellent explanation nimdae! Task killers are the devil.
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Click to collapse
I tried not using them and I get better battery life with them...I use it maybe 3 times a day after heavy multi tasking. It's to each their own..but I see results for it..like 5 extra hours.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA Premium App

knipp21 said:
I tried not using them and I get better battery life with them...I use it maybe 3 times a day after heavy multi tasking. It's to each their own..but I see results for it..like 5 extra hours.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you get that much extra, you have a misbehaving app. Better to get the app developer to fix it or find an alternative.

nimdae said:
If you get that much extra, you have a misbehaving app. Better to get the app developer to fix it or find an alternative.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, I don't need to use it often though lol
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA Premium App

I'm in Texas as well.
sent from a phone without root.

I use a task killer only to manually kill an app that freezes or something. Its easier than going to manage applications. I have the autokill disabled.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA Premium App

AngelsPunishment said:
I use a task killer only to manually kill an app that freezes or something. Its easier than going to manage applications. I have the autokill disabled.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CyanogenMod (maybe other ROMs) have a feature to kill a frozen app by holding the back button (long press, whatever). However, this can also be an annoyance on systems where for unknown reasons it registers a long press on a tap (my eris did this a lot).

How do I stop apps auto opening

The title is basically the question, im fed up of alot of programs auto opening on my android phone, it takes battery and is slightly annoying receiving notifications off apps i dont really care about such as the NFL game tells me about small things in the NFL, im in the UK, i dont care.
If you argue that it doesnt take alot of battery currently have 117mb free ram, (2 secs later) killed all my selected apps now have 201mb free so im using 80mb of ram on apps im not using. Ive made 2 or 3 phone calls today no more than 30 mins long altogether and ive lost 55% of my battery since about midday, which is when i unplugged the phone.
And I think all these apps are the problem so how can I stop them from auto opening, please help

Search the market for startup cleaner
Sent from my A101IT using xda premium

yusuo said:
If you argue that it doesnt take alot of battery currently have 117mb free ram
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More free RAM doesn't really equate to longer battery life or lower power consumption.

Better search for auto starts, this asp shows you the conditions an asp can turn back on and you can bin it off, Facebook for example had like 8 conditions, from full to medium battery life, on charge and change in network....... Use it
Sent from my HTC Desire using xda premium

rootSU said:
More free RAM doesn't really equate to longer battery life or lower power consumption.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's still no reason for most of this apps to use RAM. Apps like facebook and skype shouldn't be actice without user permission. Without login they are complete useless.
I'll try Startup Cleaner, thx.

It's how android works and what RAM is for. There is always a reason.
Sure if someone doesn't use Facebook, it should be uninstallable, but its not and its not causing any harm
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

The problem isn't that apps start when I turn on the phone its that even after i use task manager to close they keep reopening and use over 100mb of ram, earlier I checked and only had 78mb ram available.
This must have an effect on battery to some degree i want to kinda ban certain apps from running in the background unless i specifically tell them to

RAM doesn't use more power, the more its used, no.
You don't need a task killer. You do not need to obsess about RAM. Forget about RAM and enjoy your phone
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

rootSU said:
RAM doesn't use more power, the more its used, no.
You don't need a task killer. You do not need to obsess about RAM. Forget about RAM and enjoy your phone
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for you reply but its not really an answer its more of a contradiction, what I was asking is how to I stop apps from auto starting and eating up RAM, regardless of how long the phones been on

...and I'm telling you its a pointless, unecessary waste of time. Also it is not possible. Autostarts as already mentioned is the closest you'll get
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

I also turned off the autorun permissions of a lot of apps, for 2 reasons: 1) a device that is smooth sooner after booting, using less cpu cycles/power. 2) preventing Sense from reloading due to RAM shortage and have smooth multitasking.
1) Android loads a bunch of apps to the RAM that have the autorun permission, until it thinks it is "enough" and useful to you. No matter how many apps you have installed, the amount of free RAM is always about the same, just the number of "unwanted" apps in the RAM differs. Removing the autorun on boot permissions prevents the loading of unnecessary apps that will immediately be removed from the RAM the moment you start the browser/a game, saving cpu cycles=power. So for me there is no point in loading them in the first place, because I am never going to use them (right away). I want the apps that don't to any syncing loaded on demand.
2) I hate slow multitasking and I hate it even more when Sense reloads because it got kicked out of the RAM after each time I press HOME.
I use 3G Watchdog (~12MB RAM), Unlock with Wifi (~8MB), Whatsapp (~15MB), Handcent SMS (~18MB), Droidstats (~13MB), Extended Controls (~12MB), Battery Monitor Widget Pro (~13MB). Okay, I maybe could delete some of them, but these app are "OK" to me, because I use them actively or just need a background service to operate normally.
With Gemini I disabled apps like Facebook, a screenshot tool (just load when I want to make a screenshot..), various public transport planning tools, etc from autostarting.
No joy moment: after using the Facebook app (market version), it may take up 50+ MB and it will not be closed when I start another RAM intensive app, because it is a high priority service. Result: Sense gets kicked out of the RAM. Or, when the situation is somewhat less critical: multitasking is as good as unusable: switching between apps makes them load over and over again, because app2 kicks app1 out of the RAM and vice versa, causing unnecessary lag. Therefore: when I am done with facebook, I close it, then STAY the hell closed It may only autostart when it receives a push message. In that case it is nice to have FB already in RAM when I tap the notification.
Why do even some games have background services, or the Engadget app, or .. , or... all eating precious RAM. And yes, I know, once IN the RAM they eat no battery, but they DO eat battery when the app loads itself back in the RAM when it thinks it needs to, after it got kicked the moment I decided to so something else.
Hmm, spent way too much time to try to explain my frustration Oh and by the way, I have a Legend, but the basics are the same of course.

Dwnload an app called internet commander from the market. It shuts off the internet when your screen turns off but still let's you get calls and texts. I've got my phone , rooted of course, clocked to 710 and my battery will last for days.
Sent from my Eris using xda premium

I just re read your post, that won't help with apps but it will help save battery. And when you turn your screen on the internet kicks right on instantly. Good luck
Sent from my Eris using xda premium

yusuo said:
The problem isn't that apps start when I turn on the phone its that even after i use task manager to close they keep reopening and use over 100mb of ram, earlier I checked and only had 78mb ram available.
This must have an effect on battery to some degree i want to kinda ban certain apps from running in the background unless i specifically tell them to
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The guys here have already suggested you use a certain program from the Market. Have you tried it?
Regarding the whole RAM consumption issue, Android has its own built-in memory management system that ensures that there's always enough RAM for an app whenever it needs it, even if the memory manager shows like 40 MB free. Basically it "ejects" all background, unused apps, from memory making room for the foreground app which needs it most. If for some reason you need to fiddle with that, you can try using the V6 Supercharger script. I find it suitable for my needs but YMMV. It's completely reversible, so if you don't like it you can uninstall it just like that.
P.S. - I agree with rootSU, the ammount of free RAM has nothing to do with battery consumption. If you suspect that an app is draining your battery, check Android's battery statistics to find the culprit.

TVTV said:
Regarding the whole RAM consumption issue, Android has its own built-in memory management system that ensures that there's always enough RAM for an app whenever it needs it, even if the memory manager shows like 40 MB free. Basically it "ejects" all background, unused apps, from memory making room for the foreground app which needs it most. If for some reason you need to fiddle with that, you can try using the V6 Supercharger script. I find it suitable for my needs but YMMV. It's completely reversible, so if you don't like it you can uninstall it just like that.
P.S. - I agree with rootSU, the ammount of free RAM has nothing to do with battery consumption. If you suspect that an app is draining your battery, check Android's battery statistics to find the culprit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I respectfuly disagree. Android built in ram management is just silly. If I open xda app for example (it could actually be any app for that matter), reply to a few posts, read a few more and close it, why does it need to stay in ram? It reloads anyway when I run it again after I've closed it (using the back button or the actual exit command in the app itself). Why does the camera app need to stay in the background after I just shot a few photos and closed it? Because I may or may not use it again in some time? It's rediculous. And the whole theory that ram management doesn't require any power/cpu usage, how do you guys think all those apps get killed? Android will power?! No, kernel scans all running apps and kills the ones based on built in heuristics so it also reads them first. So that doesn't require any power/battery? Awesome if it's true! Although I wouldn't bet on that. And all this fuss just because you may or may not launch the same app sometime during the next day/week/month/year or it'll eventually get killed? Now that's just plain stupid. I get apps that need services like widgets, push notifications etc. but random apps like root explorer, xda app, titanium, youtube etc. which are opened specificly by the user shouldn't be in ram just for the sake of it after they're closed. I closed it, meaning I don't need it anymore. And I don't need the kernel to scan all apps and running services every time I launch an app so it could provide the free ram that app needs. Consumes cpu time, battery, i/o ... every piece of hardware actually just to free some ram that shouldn't be occupied in the first place. Every app that I ever opened on my phone got loaded almost instantly and that's just after phone had been booted. So after that it should stay in ram so I could open it in a blink of an eye instead of instantly? That's just funny.
Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud so don't flame me immediately. There probably are apsects of it that I didn't mention here or am not aware of. And I'm not saying that I'm right and you guys are wrong, I'm just saying what I know and think about this subject.
-. typewrited .-

PlayPetepp, while it might be true that the OS allocates (thus use) some resources to memory maintenance, the impact on battery life is negligible. In the Android OS, apps in memory are ordered according to priority and state, so the OS always knows which apps to kill first if it needs to make room in RAM, without much of a hassle. The only bad consequence of this system seems to be the fact that once the memory fills up, the launcher may lag or even be evacuated from memory. But, as i've mentioned in my previous post, there are ways to prevent that, either via scripts or, if you know what you're doing, via editing system files.

So the OS doesn't need to scan anything as it keeps everything in memory again? Seems like an endless loop. Open, sort, kill if needed, reopen, sort again, kill ... to what end, constant unneccessary multitasking that user is unaware of? I really don't see any benefit of that system and am only seeing the downsides. I mean, who needs every app they ever run remain in ram even if they close them after using? And then opening another app and "waiting" for whatever needs to be closed to get it running. Sure you can mess with the scripts (init.d, init.rc, etc.) but the underlined conditions stay the same. I hope I'm making sense here. Or am I fighting against windmills.
I just figured out that I strayed from the topic of this thread so won't be continuing this discussion if it's considered offtopic.
-. typewrited .-

Stop looking for excuses for poor multitasking in Sense 3+ roms

erklat said:
Stop looking for excuses for poor multitasking in Sense 3+ roms
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello again nice to see you here
Here's an interesting article on what I was talking about. Sense 3.5 doesn't need that many mbs of ram to work smoothly. After booting and setting everything up I have 150+ mb free. That should be enough for decent multitasking but all those apps not getting killed when you close them are eating too much. Can anyone explain in detail what hidden app, perceptible app, backup app and heavy_weight app means? I've been googling this for a week and can't find any decent explanation.

@PlayPetepp - I think i have already said (in my previous post) that the OS does indeed use some resources for managing the memory, but they are negligible in terms of their impact on battery life. IMHO, the only thing a 3'rd party memory manager (task killer) WILL do is improve lanuncher responsiveness (lag) as the lag does increase when free RAM drops under a certain limit. Thus used wisely, a task killer can improve responsiveness, but battery life... very little, in rare cases (it does the opposite, most of the time).
Regarding the so called "memory slots", here's an excerpt from this article:
FOREGROUND_APP: This is the application currently on the screen, and running
VISIBLE_APP: This is an application that is open, and running in the background because it's still doing something
SECONDARY_SERVER: This is a process (a service that an application needs) that is alive and ready in case it's needed to do something
HIDDEN_APP: This again is a process, that sits idle (but still alive) in case it's needed by an app that's alive and running
CONTENT_PROVIDER: This is apps that provide data (content) to the system. HTC Facebook Sync? That's a CONTENT_PROVIDER. So are things like the Android Market, or Fring. If they are alive, they can refresh and provide the content they are supposed to at the set interval. If you kill them, they can't of course.
EMPTY_APP: I call these "ghosts." They are apps that you have opened, but are done with them. Android uses a unique style of handling memory management. When an activity is ended, instead of killing it off Android keeps the application in memory so that opening them again is a faster process. Theses "ghost" apps use no battery or CPU time, they just fill RAM that would be otherwise empty. When this memory is needed by a different application or process, the RAM is flushed and made available for the new app. To satisfy the geekier people (like myself) Android does this by keeping a list of recently used apps, with the oldest apps in the list given the lowest priority -- they are killed first if RAM is needed elsewhere. This is a perfect way to handle 'ghost' processes, so there's no need to touch this part
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

High RAM usage?

I've noticed on my e975 EU version even with 0-1 apps open the ram free is only 1gb... Other phones have far more ram available including my previous nexus 4. Anyone else notice this? I often find with quite a few apps open I only have 2-300mb free

I've never seen less than 500mb free but its true. Never more than 1gb.

I checked earlier with 0 apps running it was at almost 1gb used.. what on earth is using almost 1gb!? If phones with only 1gb can use less than that on jelly bean.. why does this phone use so much?

According to ram usage i am using approx 400mb, task manager says im using 800mb. Maybe 400mb is reserved for system? This is on stock rom with only a few apps installed.
Keep in mind free ram is wasted ram. Free ram is like having a fast car and only using first gear. Still curious to know where it all ram is used nontheless.
Sent from my LG-E975K using xda premium

I get what your saying with 'Free ram is wasted ram' but when you run out of ram.... things will start to stutter.
Having a few apps open to find you only have like 300mb left is insane.
I've had phones with only 1gb ram before and with lots of apps open they are using like 700mb/1000mb... it's almost like this phone is going 'Oh I have 2gb available so i'm just going to chomp up 1gb for the sake of it and leave you with 1gb left....'

If you're root use an app called "Greenify". Simply hibernate the apps that don't use adding to the list of the app, then add the widget to hibernate the app that you added (all except whatsapp, twitter in my case). In addition I use a tasker manager (don't added to greenify) and add a widget too, that combination gave me 1,2 gb free using a lot of widgets

Im stock un-rooted.
I only have 2 widgets on my home screens, 1 is the standard world clock and the other is play music. Tried removing both and it barely made a dent...

kalo88 said:
Im stock un-rooted.
I only have 2 widgets on my home screens, 1 is the standard world clock and the other is play music. Tried removing both and it barely made a dent...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's weird, only 900 mb free?? Mmmm, try using advanced task manager from the play store (I don't remember if root is needed), that will free you more memory. But in the 900 doesn't mean that the phone will be heavier, backward the used ram is exploited to make the Optimus lighter

Seems odd eh...

I also have 600 - 700 MB of RAM when I do not use anything.
There are just icons on my homepage, and a calendar widget (stock one).
At this case, It gives me 600-700 MB of free RAM. I always use "clear RAM" button. But why it gives us so limited free ram?
I used to use 4X HD with 1GB of RAM. There were 350-400 MB free which almost same with this optimus g?
Can someone explain this situation?
Or I think we need a new update. or CM10.1

It just feels like the phone is using up too much or isn't optimised properly.
As said above, phones with only 1gb available use about 3-500mb... Our phone with 2gb available seems to use about 900mb-1gb with nothing running. It's like it's gone 'Oh there's twice as much free so I'll just use twice as much...'

What about the AOSP custom Roms ...is the ram usage is same on that kind of Roms too?
Sent from my LG-P500 using xda app-developers app

No clue, i'm 100% stock unrooted Maybe someone will know.
My nexus 4 was far better at ram usage than my optimus g mind you. No matter what it never used more than 1.2gb

I think the Lg UI(stock firmware) is a memory hungry ...i suggest to try AOSP roms with lg skin :thumbup:
Sent from my LG-P500 using xda app-developers app

Using cm10.1 and have always about 1.4gb free, and this is more than enough for everything.

Y, stock rom have a crazy high ram usage, now im on PA and got 1.2gb free.

My doubt would be if, on stock rom, you get many slowdowns when you experience this high RAM usage. For me (who doesn't still have a LGOG, but is seriously thinking of buying one), it's the thing that matters most - if the lack of free RAM results in worse usage.
Otherwise, most efforts could do more harm than good - a task killer that kills an app which will restart seconds later is wasting RAM and battery instead of saving them.
I'd give priority to greenifying unruly apps you need often and freezing apps you rarely/never need but won't/can't uninstall (with Titanium Backup, or any other app that can freeze system apps) - always making sure you're not freezing some system app that will bring your phone to its knees. With this well configured, I'd say a task killer would only bennefit those of you that rarely use your phone. Everyone who often takes it out of their pocket and updates Facebook/Twitter or plays games should let Android take care of itself, as it will keep in memory the apps you've been using the most - as it should.

Don't use task killer apps, they aren't good for Android. Maybe something like a LMK Manager but you need root to change lmk.

kalo88 said:
It just feels like the phone is using up too much or isn't optimised properly.
As said above, phones with only 1gb available use about 3-500mb... Our phone with 2gb available seems to use about 900mb-1gb with nothing running. It's like it's gone 'Oh there's twice as much free so I'll just use twice as much...'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
M$ Windows does the same thing - if you have 2GB it uses only the half, if you have 8GB is use nearly 3,5-4GB. I think it preloads a few things including the most common used apps in memory perhaps?

Using a lot of RAM... for some reason?

Ok so I was running an app to check on CPU speeds (unrelated research) when I noticed that this same app was saying I only had 340mb of RAM free...
This seemed a bit strange, considering this tablet has 3GB of RAM on board, and I'm not really running anything at the moment.
I went into the storage setting page, and looked at running processes, and it says that I am using 2.5GB of my RAM.
but... if I add up all the ram usage on all the running processes, it only adds up to about 500mb....
So what is using up the other 2gb?
If anyone has any suggestions, it'd be nice, as at the moment it seems I only have 1gb of usable RAM in this device...
EDIT:
Nevermind, I think I solved it... sort of. I found that the ram clearing button is in a different place than I remember, and I have managed to clear out some more space... though even after a full reset 1.5gb of ram is immediately being used. Seems a lot.
Though this is a stock rom etc so I suspect thats normal.

electrical tcfpain
nirurin said:
Ok so I was running an app to check on CPU speeds (unrelated research) when I noticed that this same app was saying I only had 340mb of RAM free...
This seemed a bit strange, considering this tablet has 3GB of RAM on board, and I'm not really running anything at the moment.
I went into the storage setting page, and looked at running processes, and it says that I am using 2.5GB of my RAM.
but... if I add up all the ram usage on all the running processes, it only adds up to about 500mb....
So what is using up the other 2gb?
If anyone has any suggestions, it'd be nice, as at the moment it seems I only have 1gb of usable RAM in this device...
EDIT:
Nevermind, I think I solved it... sort of. I found that the ram clearing button is in a different place than I remember, and I have managed to clear out some more space... though even after a full reset 1.5gb of ram is immediately being used. Seems a lot.
Though this is a stock rom etc so I suspect thats normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You probably aren't using all 2.5GB for actual running programs.
Windows 7 does a great job of managing money. If it has any unused memory it will hold often used programs or data in memory in case it's needed. If a running program needs that memory it's quickly shifted. Otherwise when you reopen that program you recently closed, it may load quickly from memory rather than from the drive. I suspect Android does things similar.
Modern systems programmers consider "free" memory to be wasted, so they put it to the best use they can anticipate. That gives you the benefit of all memory as often as possible. If they only allowed the memory to be used for what's needed right now, your Note would only have about 1 GB memory, and would be considerably slower.
It's a little like having the cook wash your car while waiting three hours for the turkey to cook. You get both the turkey and the car wash.

jnichols2 said:
You probably aren't using all 2.5GB for actual running programs.
Windows 7 does a great job of managing money. If it has any unused memory it will hold often used programs or data in memory in case it's needed. If a running program needs that memory it's quickly shifted. Otherwise when you reopen that program you recently closed, it may load quickly from memory rather than from the drive. I suspect Android does things similar.
Modern systems programmers consider "free" memory to be wasted, so they put it to the best use they can anticipate. That gives you the benefit of all memory as often as possible. If they only allowed the memory to be used for what's needed right now, your Note would only have about 1 GB memory, and would be considerably slower.
It's a little like having the cook wash your car while waiting three hours for the turkey to cook. You get both the turkey and the car wash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm guessing you mean android, not windows 7
Though I imagine both do the same thing lol

nirurin said:
I'm guessing you mean android, not windows 7
Though I imagine both do the same thing lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used Windows 7 as an example because I know how it works. Like you, I imagine Android 4.3 does the same thing.

I was wondering about this as well. On my Note 2, when I clean the ram, it will go to 480-500 / 1.75g on this tab, ext I could get is 1.33/2.75.......
I went through and turned off a lot of the apps, it helped free up a little bit.
Does anyone have a list of the apps that are safe to turn off?
:beer:
Sent from my SM-P600 using Xparent Cyan Tapatalk 2

I have LTE version with Snapdragon and when I start the tablet, it uses about 890MB of 2,35GB available (yes, it has 3GB RAM, but graphic processor uses some of this RAM)... When it loads all apps to RAM (about 50 of them, we know android do this) and I start few apps(FB, Gmail, Chrome, Hangouts for example), I still use only about 1,3GB of RAM... So almost 1GB is still free

In Android having too much free ram is not a good thing. Let your apps use it, you don't have to worry about not having enough ram, OS manages it well for you.

ddavtian said:
In Android having too much free ram is not a good thing. Let your apps use it, you don't have to worry about not having enough ram, OS manages it well for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Android is a mobile OS which means that it can backup and restore not needed apps if necessary and the 3GB are only the runtime memory beside this it can use the whole internal memory for "running" apps. So long Android got enough memory it holds all apps in memory which speed up the whole device. Therefore it is positive that the Note use his whole 3GB memory and don't think that killing apps or free memory will be a good idea. It will slow your device and produce lags.

ddavtian said:
In Android having too much free ram is not a good thing. Let your apps use it, you don't have to worry about not having enough ram, OS manages it well for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Elim said:
+1
Android is a mobile OS which means that it can backup and restore not needed apps if necessary and the 3GB are only the runtime memory beside this it can use the whole internal memory for "running" apps. So long Android got enough memory it holds all apps in memory which speed up the whole device. Therefore it is positive that the Note use his whole 3GB memory and don't think that killing apps or free memory will be a good idea. It will slow your device and produce lags.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are both right. Android is based on linux. Linux uses ram very effectively to cache apps and data to speed up your system. When something needs ram it removes a different app or data from the ram to keep moving. It works totally different from Windows. Check out this article.
http://www.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care

Every day since Android came out someone asks this question somewhere... Is Google offline?
Sent from my SM-P605 using XDA Premium HD app

If you want to change how your ram is managed, and you have root, you can use the v6 supercharger or a simple minfree setting app. V6 is in the developer section of the general android forum on this site. I've found that m ram fills up from cached apps. V6 will let you auto clear however often you want.